Superman better be the best damn movie EVER

[taerowyn]

So...saw X-Men last night. Just...guh! They had amazing plot possibilities, some serious avenues for character development and a really cool philosophical conundrum to explore. You got some truly geeky X-Men fan moments. Sentinels! Juggernaut! Yeah! It was a really good movie...to a point. And you can totally identify that point at which the director thought "you know, I'm tired of thinking, let's just blow shit up."

And from that point on ("If Magneto wants a war, we'll give him one" anyone?) the movie trots out cliche after cliche. Lines like the above, "Hell hath no fury..." "They're ready, but are you", a frickin' Japanese tourists "joke"--I mean come on! It was instantaneous...I was drawn into the movie, sitting at the edge of my seat, the president spoke that one line and it was like a switch was thrown. I no longer cared and just had to sit back and laugh/weep as the movie took a dive into pure suckitude. I'm glad he killed so many people off* cause I really don't think I could bear to see something this bad again.

My friend and I decided that giving us an X-Men movie, which we've been waiting for and lusting after forever, and then making it this... Well, it's like offering somebody a kitten. "See the nice kitten. Isn't it the specialist kitten ever. Pet the kitten...see, it's the sweetest kitten in the world, just what you've always wanted. See that nice busy road over there?" *Toss* and then you can't look away and a little piece of you dies with each collision.

And the end! Where everything is really quickly wrapped up with a nice little bow. Just ARGH! I'm sorry, Magneto never repents with "What have I done?", Rogue doesn't fuckin' take the "easy" way out and take the cure. And just....guh!!!!!

All I gotta say is that Superman better rock beyond the telling of it or, in penance, Brian Singer should be forced to watch this piece of crap everyday for the rest of his life.

Also, for those who haven't gone and haven't heard, there is post-credit footage, so stay to the end...so you can watch them kick the damn corpse of one of the best franchises ever.

*and if they try to use the whole Charles is back! thing to revive the series...remind me not to go even though I most likely won't heed your warning.

And I have to admit...I'll probably see the Wolverine movie, but then...come on, why wouldn't I? Hugh Jackman!

Comments

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

Hear hear.

Just ARGH! I'm sorry, Magneto never repents with "What have I done?"

Fucking seriously. He wants Jean on his side because she's all superpowerful and crazy and he wants her to indulge in her crazy side and free herself from Xavier's mental imprisonment, and then when she does exactly what he fucking wants her to do, he's shocked and feels bad. They took Darth Vader, and turned him into Anakin fucking Skywalker with one stupid line.

"Hell hath no fury..."

She sure as hell looked pretty fucking welldressed and unshackled for someone who has murdered countless soldiers and civilians. "Ho ho ho..." says the President, "She's sure made at her ex. Oh it is to laugh."

The movie was nonsensical. When I can pick out multiple idiotic moves in a battle, it is a bad movie, because I do not have a tactical mind. When I start guessing lines in my head before characters say them word for word, sometimes minutes before they say them, it is a bad movie. When you take a classic, well-loved story from comics' history, and completely fucking ignore every fucking thematic element other than, "Powerful entity kills people and breaks shit", then it is a bad fucking movie.

I have to stop thinking about it because I just get angrier, and it's just a movie. It just ruined the childlike joy I felt at the end of X-Men II. It had been years since a movie had done that to me like X-Men II did. I felt like I was eight again and had just seen Return of the Jedi for the first time. Now I feel like I'm old and just saw The Phantom Menace for the first time, only all the human actors are edited out and it's just a bunch of talking digital puppets.

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

I will say that when Kitty said, "You've got Rogue, and I've got..." my brain filled in, "A purple dragon?"

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

Well, also, "Colossus."

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

Yeah... there was a scene in the blackbird where it pans from Kitty to Colossus, and I thought, "Haw haw, in the comic you to were doin' it," and then I noticed the very obvious age difference between the two actors and felt ooky.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

I'm told that that's actually normal! I never knew what ages they were (I only seriously know the X-Men where they intersected with the New Mutants), but I guess there is a large disparity. Of course, now Colossus is gay.
I'm a little sad that they kept switching Kitties, too; I liked the one from 2; she looked like an awkward teener, not so much of a Nickelodeon sweetheart.

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

I know she was 13 1/2 when she joined, and turned 15 in Excalibur ten or so years later, after the X-Men "died" and went to Australia. Colossus seemed anywhere from late teens to early twenties, which did make the comics a little creepy in that the age difference implications seemed to be glossed over. Maybe he was supposed to be younger, and was just very buff for a junior high student ;). I hear recently that Nightcrawler is now considered a nineteen-year-old in the comics. All part of the miracle of the sliding timescale I suppose.

"Switching Kitties" is my new band name.

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

My brain was think..."I'm sorry, Alan Cumming was too smart to sign-up for this piece of crap so you get nothing."

Of course Alan Cumming and that actress would have been a bit oogy on the age factor, but still...

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

Of course Alan Cumming and that actress would have been a bit oogy on the age factor, but still...

They were just good friends in the comic. However, she and Colossus were kind of an item before Excalibur began.

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

OK, so maybe my memory is going...weren't they an item in Excalibur?

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

I don't think so.

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

Never mind then...

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

And even before that point, Magneto has been behaving completely out of character with the evil-but-consistent, and therefore interesting, political morality that he's been shown to live by in the preceding two movies. They first turn him into a generic henchman-wasting Bond villain, which he'd never been before, and then give him the cliched remorse.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think it actually got bad before that point, though admittedly there were nice moments. The opening sequence with younger Charles and Magneto discovering Jean Grey was really nice, and could have been the opening to a great superhero movie. But the moment Phoenix kills Cyclops offscreen (and he was a character I never even liked), it goes off the rails.

As I've said elsewhere, it seemed as if the movie was trying as hard as it could to destroy everything cool about the franchise.

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

But the moment Phoenix kills Cyclops offscreen (and he was a character I never even liked), it goes off the rails.

I kept expecting him to show up fifteen minutes later in traditional Marvel "I'm not really dead!" fashion, but that was reserved for someone else later in the film. The way his death was initially played out seemed like such an afterthought, I was kind of surprised that he actually was dead. Especially considering no-one seemed to care where he was until Jean and Logan seemed to start getting it on at the lab. Just another example of the poor writing is:

A) Cyclops leaves the mansion to go yell at the lake
B) Storm and Wolverine go to the lake at Professor X's request
C) Storm and Wolvering find Jean, who they thought was dead, as well as evidence that Cyclops was recently in the area, as his glasses are part of big giant floating telekinetic mobile
D) Storm and Wolverine take Jean back to mansion
E) No mention of perhaps setting up a search and rescue party for Cyclops, who seems to have disappeared under rather mysterious circumstances.

Perhaps I blinked at the wrong moment, but I don't recall seeing any evidence of him being dead that the characters could discern, until Jean gets upset in the lab.

As I've said elsewhere, it seemed as if the movie was trying as hard as it could to destroy everything cool about the franchise.

When I was young, it took me a few months to realise that the comics, which were admittedly silly to begin with, had turned to utter crap, and were no longer worth my time, no matter how much I had emotionally invested in the characters as a fan. The movie did that for me with regards to the film franchise in two hours.

Everyone thinks it has something to with writers and directors and Fox studio execs and whatnot, but that's not it at all. This movie had the obligatory Stan Lee cameo far too early. After that, it ran out of steam. It's all about timing!

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree there were some major plot holes...no doubt. Storm and Wolverine leaving the lake without searching for Scott being a HUGE one. But still, there was this little glimmering hope of redemption as they explored some of the moral/philosophical aspects of it all. You know, before they decided explosions are better than thinking.

Also, I couldn't keep a straight face through the opening sequence as I thought of all the squealing slash-writers quivering in their seats at those scenes. Sorry...my mind goes strange places.